Emotions Revealed
Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and
Emotional Life
By Paul Ekman
Times Books
HC, 268 pgs., US$25/C$36.95
ISBN: 0-8050-7275-6
A guide to how we feel
By Steven Martinovich
web posted April 7, 2003
The eyes may be the window to the soul but it is our displays of
emotions that report what we are more immediately to
observers. Given that the human face is capable of making more
than 10 000 expressions, we are capable of signaling amazingly
subtle nuances of emotion. Emotions are so powerful,
researchers have found, that the simple act of making a facial
expression can actually bring about the emotion you are imitating.
Paul Ekman has been conducting research in the field of emotion
for several decades, research that has taken him across the
world to determine the universality of expressions, the fruits of
which have resulted in Emotions Revealed. Exploring major
emotions in depth, Ekman relates the current thinking of what
sparks them, why we display and how to interpret them and
what we can do to control them.
The consensus among researchers, he writes, seems to be that
displays of emotions have evolved -- though learned behavior
certainly plays a role -- over the history of humankind to act as
signals to others, whether its anger if our ambitions are
threatened to fear from threats in nature. Many triggers for our
emotions are cross cultural, a fear of snakes seems to be an
almost evolved emotion, though emotions prompted by violations
of social norms aren't always universal. Despite that, Ekman's
research has shown that emotions and how they are interpreted
-- whether by westerners or members of isolated tribes -- seems
to be an innate skill of humans.
Ekman devotes the first several chapters of Emotions Revealed
to the essence of our emotions and the roles that they play in our
lives. He details the tremendous changes our bodies go through
nearly instantaneously as we react to a situation that results in an
emotion and how we express them both verbally and non-
verbally. Ekman discusses strategies of how we can change what
we become emotional about and how to respond to emotional
triggers in different ways. Throughout he makes it quite clear of
how important he believes emotion is to humanity.
"Without excitement, sensory pleasure, pride in our achievements
and achievements of our offspring, amusement in the many odd
and unexpected things that happen in life, would life be worth
living? Emotion is not like an appendix, a vestigial apparatus we
don't need and should remove. Emotions are at the core of our
life. They make life livable," he writes.
From there Ekman moves into exploring several emotions such
as sadness, agony, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt and
happiness in greater detail. For each he goes into great detail the
early signals that are the preludes to a full-blown emotional
display. Ekman argues that by knowing what emotion is being
communicated -- knowing what the trigger for that emotion was
is considerably more complicated for an observer -- we can be
better equipped to communicate with that person and deal with
the emotions we manifest in response.
Emotions may be at the core of our lives, as Ekman states, but it
seems the researchers studying the field have concentrated on
what the layperson would consider to be negative displays. It
shows in Emotions Revealed with several chapters devoted to
one or two "negative" emotions like anger or disgust but only one
lone chapter dedicated to covering what Ekman refers to as
"enjoyable emotions" despite his belief that "there are more than
a dozen enjoyable emotions." That's, of course, if researchers
can come to an agreement on a reasonable list of these emotions.
Indeed, he admits there is argument whether so-called sensory
pleasures -- such as feelings produced by being touched by
someone you love -- are even emotions.
The fact that Ekman is one of the most prominent researchers in
the field of emotion is clearly evident in Emotions Revealed. His
own groundbreaking research is cited throughout and he offers
reasonable advice to the reader in dealing with their emotions
and those of the people around them. Ekman is right, emotions
do make life livable and Emotions Revealed is an absorbing
guide to some of those that we take for granted but say so much
about us.
Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com